The Ontario Municipal Board’s days of authority over Toronto city planning decisions may be numbered, if councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam has any say in the matter. Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto-Centre Rosedale) plans to introduce a motion at a council meeting on September 21 calling for the OMB—a provincial body that hears appeals in municipal planning cases—to be abolished, or at least for the City of Toronto to be removed from its jurisdiction.

“The OMB has been a very cumbersome and difficult body that we've been forced to deal with,” she says. “[Toronto] has a robust planning department that's qualified, professionally trained, and experienced. We don't need the OMB to tell sophisticated urban planners how to build our city. It just undermines local planning efforts and issues.”

But although many Torontonians love to hate the OMB, whether a city council headed by a pro-development mayor will pass a motion calling for the end of the pro-development organization is another matter.

The OMB is routinely criticized on a number of fronts. It’s called out for making decisions based on precedent rather than sound planning principles, and for enabling developers to brush off community consultations and city planning procedures (since they know they can turn around and appeal city decisions that they don’t like). The board is also seen as undemocratic, given that its members are appointed by the Ontario cabinet rather than elected.

But with Ontario’s provincial election campaign underway, Wong-Tam hopes that her motion will propel these issues into the spotlight.

“I'm very mindful right now that we have a small window of opportunity to ask the provincial parties, who are all courting city voters, how they're going to help our city. I'd like them to put that commitment [to the city] to the test,” she says.

Numerous community groups and residents’ associations agree. Josh Fullan, of People Plan Toronto, a group that advocates increased citizen participation in city planning, says that his organization is eager to see the OMB’s role in Toronto included in the election conversation.

“The OMB is an appointed board that substitutes its opinions for democratic processes. And access to the board is not equitable,” Fullan says, recalling a 2009 People Plan Toronto statement about the OMB. The statement noted that “few independent citizens or community groups have the financial resources to participate fully in OMB hearings. In contrast, the other side generally has a battery of lawyers, planners and expert witnesses at their disposal.”

Charles Campbell, who works with Active18, another community group, agrees that the OMB’s “power over planning in Toronto” should be taken away, but is quick to add that “the OMB is not the whole problem.”

“A very major part of the problem is the bad planning, or the lack of planning, done by the city,” Campbell says. “When we get angry with the OMB and the bad decisions that it makes—and that certainly is the case—it's in the context of the city being behind the eight ball.”

Wong-Tam echoes the sentiment that the Toronto city planning department is stretched thin, especially in downtown wards where planners “have incredible workloads” and service cutbacks make things even more challenging. But she notes that taking the OMB out of the equation would help alleviate this problem, by removing the large amount of work required to prepare for OMB hearings.

Planners agree. “Certainly it would be helpful for us to not have to be defending our decisions at the OMB, given how many development applications we get,” said Al Rezoski, the acting manager of the downtown section of Toronto community planning.

Not only do planners have to be present for the bulk of an OMB hearing itself, but they also generally spend two to three days preparing for each day of the hearing, said John Paton, director of planning and administrative tribunal law at the city. For a five day OMB hearing, for example, a planner could be tied up for as many as twenty days.

The OMB declined to comment on the proposed changes to its role in Toronto municipal planning. “You’re asking about something that has nothing to do with the OMB,” said Karen Kotzen, the board’s communications consultant. “The government makes the laws, and the OMB just follows them.”

No matter what the government decides to do about the OMB, Campbell, of Active18, hopes it’s done thoughtfully. “Of course we want to get rid of the OMB,” he said. “But let’s think carefully about what we put in its place.”